Suburban Officials Try To Read Between Lines Of Tutoring Service

American Learning Corp., acquired last year by Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., will open eight for-profit reading tutorial centers in the Chicago suburbs this month.

But, the program is getting a cool reception among public school officials in the suburbs.

The eight centers, which focus exclusively on teaching reading after school hours, are planned for Arlington Heights, River Grove, Bannockburn, Schaumburg, Westchester, Glenview, Wheaton and Naperville. The program they offer has been dubbed ``The Reading Game.``

American Learning has about 60 centers in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Arizona, New Hampshire and Texas. Last week, the Encyclopaedia Britannica board endorsed plans to open 500 centers in the next five years.

The suburban openings will be the first in the Chicago area for the company, founded in 1970 in Huntington Beach, Calif., by California educator Kenneth A. Martyn and financier Victor Palmieri, chairman of Baldwin-United Corp. The company is part of Britannica Learning Corp., a unit of Britannica Inc. that owns two educational software companies.

``An important business principle that needs to be applied to education is concentrate your resources to do a few things very well,`` said Martyn in an interview last week. ``We do all the things that the public school teacher, if she had her druthers and the financial resources, would do.``

The Chicago area centers will charge $28 an hour plus a one-time $95 charge for diagnostic testing. Typically, students will attend two one-hour sessions a week.

The centers will employ certified teachers who have completed training in the program and have passed security checks with the FBI, Martyn said.

Each center will be equipped with about $18,000 worth of computers, software and other materials. Each teacher will work with no more than three students at a time, he said.

``We`re supplementing, for those parents who can afford it, the resources of the public schools,`` Martyn said. The centers elsewhere draw private school students, as well.

``We do the best in the areas that have the best schools,`` he said.

Suburban school district officials contacted last week about the program said they had never heard of Martyn or his company. Martyn acknowledged that he and his staff have not begun contacting school officials or parents here.

``One of our big things is to get the teachers and principals to come in,`` he said. The Chicago region will be headed by Jill Donaldson-Schmidt.

Samuel Mikaelian, assistant superintendent for instruction for the Wilmette public schools, was one of the officials unfamiliar with Martyn and his program.

``People are finding that education is a profitable business,`` he said.

``If they`re good, I have no problem. There are a number of kids who could benefit from extra help. I think they`re going to have trouble in this area, because there are a number of people who do private tutoring.``

Other officials noted that the Illinois General Assembly recently increased funding for special reading programs within public schools.

Moreover, Mikaelian warned: ``Some tutorial programs are run like home repair shops. They tell you your furnace is faulty. No child is perfect, and no child is achieving to the maximum that some person can claim that child can achieve.

``There are some charlatans who prey on the fact that parents are anxious.``

Martyn, who holds a doctorate in education from Stanford University and has acted as a consultant to several national and state commissions, said his company in effect bids with public and private schools for the best teachers. ``The really competent people want to be paid on the basis of performance,`` Martyn said.